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I obediently wrapped the blister caps he gathered in a cloth and dropped them in the basket before he continued. As soon as he’d found the first batch of mushrooms, he started talking and didn’t stop.
“You will need three parts blister cap to two parts whitegill.” He showed me the thick, white-headed mushrooms next. “And the final component, though by far the most important…”
The Augur puttered his way to another clearing, and found what he was looking for growing in clusters under the base of a tall oak. He pulled on thick leather gloves before harvesting these ones.
They were vibrant red, covered with white spots. “This is what keeps the monster within you contained.” His milky eyes met mine over the mushroom he shoved towards me. “Too little and you are uncontrolled, a danger to all who come near you. Too much… and we lose our only Vessel to a very painful death.” He let out another grating giggle.
I stared at the little fungus that my life revolved around, amazed how it could be something so tiny and innocuous-looking.
He harvested nearly eight of the poisonous mushrooms before finding stalks of a thin brown fungus that he told me gave me the visions necessary to see the true nature of the Beasts of the Wood.
I blinked at him when he said this. I had not drunk tea for hours when I’d sneaked into the Wood at night; I’d seen the Beast perfectly clear then, without a single drop of the divine consecration in my body.
“This also must be used in small doses.” He dropped the thin stalks in the basket and began to tap his way past several stumps. “The recipe to brew the tea has very exacting standards, and few can handle it. Even I would not dare to drink it, even if brewed perfectly!”
“So you feed me poison, and expect me to thank you for it.”
The Augur stopped, looking back at me with those misty eyes. “Excuse me?”
My breath was coming too fast. I saw the Beasts without the use of their so-called consecration; if he ever used too much of the red-capped mushroom, I would die in agony.
My life was held in such careless hands.
“It’s poison. You’re feeding me poison.” I almost wanted to laugh. My lips were still numb from the small cup of tea I’d had earlier.
He wasn’t suppressing the monster inside me.
He was simply killing me slowly.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The Augur leaned on his staff. “Do you want to let the monster out, stupid girl? You would be no better than the Beasts themselves, then. You would kill everyone in this village without mercy or remorse.” He tapped a bony finger in the middle of my chest. “This is for your own good, and ours.”
“I think you’re a liar,” I said quietly, and the Augur’s eyes flickered. His mouth twisted in a ugly frown.
“You can think what you like. In the end, the choice comes down to this: the consecration, or the flames.” He grinned, showing his yellowed teeth. “Your mother chose the flames, and how shescreamed—”
He stopped dead, mouth still open, eyes fixed on some point past my shoulder. Under the dream-like influence of the tea, I waited for him to finish his sentence without realizing he had frozen in horror.
“Oh,” I said, when I turned and saw what his eyes were fixed on, and understood we had been watched the entire time we were in the Wood.
This Beast was out in the daylight. Instinctively I knew this was not the same werewolf I had met by midnight; there was neither patience nor mercy in those green, slit-pupiled eyes.
His fur was mottled dove gray and white; he rose from a crouch to a height over eight feet tall, hostility radiating from every line of his body. The Beast’s rangy form defied even the likes of the strongest man in the village, the lines of muscle visible even under the coat of short, soft fur. A coarse mane of longer fur trailed from the crown of his head and down his spine.
He strode closer, walking on two long, clawed feet. They turned backwards, much like a wolf’s legs, only much larger.
It astounded me how much larger the Beasts were in real life. It was one thing to be told tales of giants, and another to witness them in the flesh with your own eyes.
He could reach out and squash me as easily as breathing.
The Augur let out a faint whine, holding his staff in front of him and inching behind me. As though that puny stick of wood would do anything to this creature of the Wood.
The Beast let out a huffing breath at the sound of that whine, already raising one clawed hand to strike. He was less than ten feet away, a gap he could close in the blink of an eye.
Without thinking, I stepped to the side, putting myself between the Beast and the Augur and holding out my arms.
“You can’t have him,” I said firmly.
The Beast paused, giving me a faintly astonished look. Then his long snout twitched as he sniffed the air between us. “You stink of poison, witch.”
